Synopsis
It was on today’s date in 1835 that Romantic opera composer Vincenzo Bellini died at a country home near Paris. He was only 34 but had achieved great fame in his brief lifetime.
The long, elegant melodic lines Bellini spun out in his operas were much admired and proved to be a major influence on the solo piano works of his contemporary, Frederic Chopin.
Bellini’s first success was Il Pirata or The Pirate from 1827, and just three years later, he could truthfully report: “My style is now heard in the most important theatres in the world …and with the greatest enthusiasm.” He settled in Paris, where his final opera, I Puritani di Scozia or The Puritans of Scotland premiered early in 1835.
If Bellini’s life had followed the Romantic story-lines of his operas, he would have been a dispossessed outcast who dies for love. In fact, Bellini was financially successful, moved in the highest social circles, and — rather than dying for love — was planning to marry for money at the time he succumbed to chronic gastroenteritis.
At his requiem mass, four leading composers of his day, Paer, Cherubini, Carafa and Rossini, each held a corner of the coffin shroud.
Music Played in Today's Program
Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835): Sinfonia from Il Pirata; German Opera Orchestra, Berlin; Marcello Viotti, conductor; Berlin Classics 11152
On This Day
Births
1899 - American composer William Levi Dawson, in Anniston, Alabama
1920 - Armenian composer Alexander Arutiunian, in Yerevan. His Trumpet Concerto, composed in 1950, is his best-known work.
1926 - American composer and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, in Hamlet, North Carolina
1928 - American pianist and composer Robert Helps, in Passaic, New Jersey
Deaths
1835 - Italian opera composer Vincenzo Bellini, 33, in Puteaux (near Paris)
2006 - British composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, 84, in Norfolk county, eastern England
Premieres
1777 - Gluck: opera, Armide, at the Académie Royale in Paris
1913 - Charles Wakefield Cadman: Piano Trio, at a private home in Denver; The first public performance took place the following month in Minneapolis
1958 - Stravinsky: Threni, at San Rocco in Venice, by the North German Radio Orchestra of Hamburg (who had commissioned the work), conducted by the composer
1962 - Copland: Connotations for Orchestra, at Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) during the opening season of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein. This concert, televised by CBS, also included the Gloria from Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and the first movement (Veni, Creator Spiritus) from Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.
1965 - Diamond: Elegies for Flute, English Horn, and Strings, by Murray Panitz (flute), Louis Rosenblatt (English horn), and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting
1990 - James MacMillan: Sowetan Spring for winds, at the Glasgow Hospitality Inn by the winds of the Royal Scottish Orchestra, John Paynter conducting
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About Composers Datebook®
Host John Birge presents a daily snapshot of composers past and present, with timely information, intriguing musical events and appropriate, accessible music related to each.
He has been hosting, producing and performing classical music for more than 25 years. Since 1997, he has been hosting on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical Music Service. He played French horn for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra and performed with them on their centennial tour of Europe in 1995. He was trained at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy.
